There is a fine line between a gamble and pure folly and today Miller undoubtedly crossed it. Jackass, as he likes to call himself, does nothing halfway and during the qualifying session in Argentina, he laid it all on the line and cleaned up big.
Pole position, a word in MotoGP that had not appeared beside an Australian’s name since the 2012 GP of Phillip Island del 2012, when Stoner was still racing. Miller rewrote the stats and he did it his way: putting on slicks when the track was still very wet on a few corners.
“It actually wasn’t that bad. I just had to take a shower after getting through certain moments – he joked – To be honest, in the first two sectors of the track it was pretty easy, but turn 7 was completely wet. I just tried to survive at that point.”
He did it to perfection, so well that he took the first pole position of his MotoGP career.
“It’s wonderful, especially for the team. In fact, I need to thank the guys for letting me go out on the slicks and not stopping me. When I crossed the line and saw my time, I thought it was wrong.”
The impression is that Miller, in his second race on the Pramac Ducati, still can’t believe it. He uses humor to describe what he felt.
“My mum always said that I never listen and I didn’t listen to what the bike was telling me – laughing – It’s difficult to describe how slippery the wet asphalt is when you go over it on slicks. On the last corner I had to go over a rivulet and the front kept closing up. I switched to survival mode.”
However, the gamble paid off and this time Jack… hit the jackpot.
“I usually don’t take so many risks with the cameras on – he continued joking – you have seen some, but to really understand the situation, you’d have to watch the on board for those laps. There were moments when I simply felt like a passenger on the bike. In a certain sense, it was a calculated risk.”
Tomorrow he will start ahead of the rest.
“I hope to capitalize well on my position, but I am especially hoping for a dry race. Today there was only rain on one turn and it isn’t nice to ride that way”, he concluded.